Magnetic Fields

D

DeadlyAura

CoalWagen
2FA
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
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5,072
I was just thinking, I have 4 case fans in the front of my PC. They are about this far ||||||||||||| from my HDD's. Since the fans are magnetically driven, what is this doing to my drives?

I can't imagine that a magnetic field near a hard drive is any good for it.

Whats your thought on this?
 
Nothing....because the HDD's are encased with metal (shielded), you get no magnetic waves traveling through it. And the little traces on the PCB's of the HDD's probably won't be affected at all, if little at best...
 
So I'm going to assume the metal casing is non magnetic. That would make alot of really obvious sense... Why the hell didn't that cross my mind? :confused:
 
It's not that the metal casing isn't magnetic, but when magnetic waves are traveling through the air in the case of your fans (if they are even that strong to begin with...), the waves generated get reflected off of pure metal, rather than propigate through as in the case of a fibre optic cable.

For more info on this, look up electromagnetic reflection coefficient, EM wave propigation, and metal dielectric properties.
 
Don't you need a pretty damn strong magnetic field to mess up the hard drive? I highly doubt a tiny case fan will have any affect whatsoever, even if you rub the thing all over the hard drive. ;)
 
something to ponder

why would the fan's motor mess up the hd, when there is a motor INSIDE the hd to make the platters spin? ;)
 
Fun Fact: take a disconnected LED fan, and blow some compressed air through it. You can get it going fast enough that the magnets create enough current to light up the LED's :cool:
 
jaguax said:
Don't you need a pretty damn strong magnetic field to mess up the hard drive? I highly doubt a tiny case fan will have any affect whatsoever, even if you rub the thing all over the hard drive. ;)
Click to expand...


(cf)Eclipse said:
something to ponder

why would the fan's motor mess up the hd, when there is a motor INSIDE the hd to make the platters spin? ;)
Click to expand...

it wouldn't, but if the HDD wasn't encased with metal, and the fan's magnet attached to the motor was strong enough and spinning fast enough...(highly unlikely of course)...the platters "could" mess up or in other words, the polarization of the plates could become fubar which would lead to corrupt data.

But yes , you both are right
 
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